Well we got really bitten by the holiday bug. So bad that we stayed up until we were falling asleep into our books. Peli was taken by “Case Histories” by Kate Atkinson and I was finishing off Bill Bryson’s “Shakespeare” and then started on “John Deering – A team on the run”.
Therefore our planned early start went out of the window, and we decided to walk up to La Croix de St Justin for a lovely sunny picnic with Peli’s mum.
The road up to the Tourmalet.
When we arrived back we went to the local spa, the Thermes de Bareges, for a 15min bath/massage in sulphur water, which made us all feel nicely relaxed. The spa has a near-religious following in France and the world as the water is said to be able to cure every thing. Napolean even brought his armies to be healed here. As we entered we where told that we should follow the hallway down and then take some steps a floor down, though they forgot to tell us that the stairs were behind a door so not easy to spot. We ended up walking down this very eerie corridor, with cubicals on each side and people laying inside all wrapped up in plastic. What made it really scary was that there were no staff around and it was so quiet, it really felt like a morgue. We finally managed to find the right place and got our massage in a jacuzzi bath; a “bain hydroxeur”.
That evening, over a delicious galette de ble noir, I asked Peli if she fancied doing the Hautacam (which she’d done twice before). She was a bit reluctant for some reason. 😉
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